A large selection of "older EA titles" will lose multiplayer support when their servers are shut

down on Tuesday, February 2, the development giant has revealed.

The list of twenty affected titles features a number of relatively new titles such as August 2008 release Madden NFL 09--succeeded by August 2009's Madden NFL 10--and November 2008's Facebreaker, as well as some with a few more years under their belts.

Break faces no more after that fateful Tuesday! Tuesday! Tuesday!

"You may continue to play the games online up until these dates," EA explains, "but certain community programs may begin to close down prior to the shutdown dates."

The closures do not necessarily affect all platforms or territories. For example, NBA 07 servers will continue to run for PlayStation 3 after EA shuts down the Xbox 360 and PSP's. Meanwhile, the whole world faces an end to multiplayer NASCAR 09 on PlayStation 2 but only Europe loses the joys of racing around oval tracks on 360 and PS3 too.

This is by no means the first round of EA severs shutdowns, though with thirty-seven editions of twenty games games set to lose multiplayer it is certainly is larger than 2009's, when online support was ended for seventeen editions of eight games in April.

EA warns of servers shutdown on the back of its game boxes, though in small print and perhaps not in the clearest language. "EA may retire online features after 30 days notice posted on www.ea.com," reads the boilerplate warning, with season-based sports games sporting addendums similar to Madden NFL 09's "...or 30 days after the last day of the 2008-2009 NFL season."

"All of us at EA would like to thank you for your valued participation in our online gaming community," a friendly note on the announcement page reads, "and hope that your enthusiasm for these games extends to our current lineup and beyond."

There we go, still waking up. ^

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Quote:

Originally Posted by AspectVoid

I had no idea he was posting awesome stuff that would get the ads cancelled.

Unless EA really steps up and makes Origin a real competitor to Steam in terms of features and customer-friendlyness, I just don't see myself buying any game from Origins. Or one that would require an Origins account, for that matter.

I might get the physical copy of some EA games that I really want, but physical copies rarely get cheap enough for me to bother with.

Not always. If you're a farmer, and you think the grocery store gets too big a cut, selling all of your crops out of the barn may not be a good plan.

Particularly if you've tried selling out of your barn before and it keeps collapsing onto the few customers who wander by.

And your parking lot is nothing but the swine pen, where cars always get stuck in knee-deep pig shit.

And you sell it for more in your barn than the grocery store charged.

And you named the barn after those workers you raped to death back in the late 90s.

Hilarious. +1

On the one hand, its like someone said on Page 1, the best thing would be to offer it on Origin for less $$$ than Steam, but perhaps this means the PC multiplayer would be two different groups.

Hate that the TOS says download only available for 1 year. So if I buy Mass Effect 2, download but don't play it, then my computer dies a year later and I want to get it again there's no promises... that is terrible.

It looks like BF3 has some chance of narrowly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory against being the top shooter in the market.

[QUOTE=Demo_Boy;2021642]Hate that the TOS says download only available for 1 year. So if I buy Mass Effect 2, download but don't play it, then my computer dies a year later and I want to get it again there's no promises... that is terrible.[QUOTE]

Funny you say that, because I bought the physical copies of Mass Effect 1 and 2 around a year ago and haven't played them yet. Since I actually own them, it's nice that I can play them whenever I want. Luckily they're still available on Steam, but who knows for how long.

Sorry, the ONLY digital services I use are Steam and GOG, I will NOT be using a third one, especially for the dung pile called EA. EA is stupid because this will just drive people to pirate the games who might have bought it off steam.

Sorry, the ONLY digital services I use are Steam and GOG, I will NOT be using a third one, especially for the dung pile called EA. EA is stupid because this will just drive people to pirate the games who might have bought it off steam.

See that is a choice. And a choice that could be altered. I am just saying. To complain about something that really doesn't have any effect other then you have to log into a different account come on.

How many times have you seen stuff being sold exclusively for a store, it happens. This is just another case of that, but digitally.

Well, now I'll be buying Mass Effect 3 in a store, and if it needs Origin, I'll be cracking it.

No one else noticed that Crysis 2 is also 60 bucks on Origin as well? lol Pirates will still get their games, you can play Steam games without Steam even installed for ages now, so a pointless move there on EA's part, will be the same for them.